Book Review: Safari Jema by Teresa O'Kane

Have you ever wondered what it's like to travel overland with an overland truck company?

Teresa O'Kane "Safari Jema'

Have you considered the pace of travel? The group dynamics?  If considering using an overland truck company to explore Africa, then you need to read Teresa O'Kane's book "Safari Jema".

11 Inspirational Overland Travel Routes Map by ATRAVELTHING/magazine

Recently ATRAVELTHING/magazine published the above map with eleven of the most inspirational overland travel routes. The map was created by author Danny Selwag.

The two trans-Africa routes were of interest to me...

The map has the following description per route:

Trans-Saharan DownThe Trans-Saharan Highway is one of the oldest transnational highways and the most complete. Can however be rough to get through the middle of the Sahara.
If you want more, continue from Lagos down to Namibia or even South Africa.

Cairo - Cape TownThe Cairo - Cape Town Highway will take you most of the way, but a little detour to Namibia towards the end might be worth it. Some parts of the road is unpaved, giving a rougher journey.
Be prepared with visas and papers for all the border-crossings, as well as local conflicts.

Overall, the map is a good start in highlighting the major overland routes however the descriptions of each route need slight amending.    "...rough to get through the middle of the Sahara" is a bit of an underestimate. This route has been closed for decades (unfortunately) but credit is due to the author as this route is certainly one of the most interesting.  A few books and blogs detail the transit across the Sahara in detail that leaves one yearning to experience.

The Cairo to Cape Town is by far the most popular route with the least visa issues (compared to West Africa) and can mostly be done on paved roads.  The author mentions local conflicts but these hardly affect overlanders.

Africa has a few overland routes - read more about choosing an overland route and one of the lost routes from West to East Africa.

Forum Statistics 2013 to 2014

In 2013, the media focused on "Overland Travel", with various vehicle manufacturers using overland travel to prove new vehicles (i.e. Land Rover / Range Rover) and in the USA, "overland" was a buzzword with plenty of new brands attempting to capitalize on the overland journey rather than the destination.

Google Image Search: Overland Travel Forum

Twitter and Facebook websites boomed with new Followers and Likes, whilst the traditional forums hummed with new users and topics.

"A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users." Wikipedia

Over the last two years I have annually recorded various internet forums, monitoring the user growth, thread count and active posts numbers. You can read the 2011 and 2012 overland forum stats via previous blog posts.

In this post, I summarize the numbers from February 2013 to January 2014.

All4Adventure - Australian TV Series

Do you have any favourite 4x4 TV show?  Australia certainly has a fair share of good broadcast quality 4x4 TV series - everything from documentary style reporting, adventure seeking & 4x4 racing!

Two shows I especially enjoy watching are the team from All4Adventure (Jason & Simon) and the TV series hosted and produced by Pat Callinan.  Both shows are very different. Jason & Simon (All4Adventure) seek out adventure and remote fishing locations whilst Pat Callinan hosts a show that is more sedate and filled with 4x4 tips, easy locations for average 4x4 adventurer, plus plenty of product advertising for certain brands (sponsors primarily).

Recently Jason & Simon managed to make headlines around the globe as they rolled a vehicle whilst attempting a recovery. Recap on the video which went viral here:

Part 2 was released last week... Jason explains what happened.  A very impressive 2nd recovery and certainly not one I would have thought off.

Long may funding be available for 4x4 adventurers to continue to share stories!

Land Rover or Toyota: What happened in 2013?

Was Land Rover or Toyota the preferred vehicle choice in 2013 for independent trans-Africa overland travel?  In this blog post I outlined the preferred vehicle choice for 2013, average travel time in 2013 and a summary of different vehicles used over the last four years.

The Africa Overland Network was formally launched in September 2000 and currently has over 800 independent overland websites listed - this website provides an excellent base for actively monitoring overland trips departing per year.

Over the last decade of independent overland travel, the preferred vehicle has been Land Rover but in 2011, Toyota became the preferred vehicle of choice.  In 2012, Land Rover bounced back to claim the number 1 spot. What happened in 2013?

Here are the links to the previous overland website statistics: 2010 | 2011 | 2012

The 2013 Stats...

Land Rover and Toyota once again proved to be the most popular choice for overland travel in Africa (departing in 2013). A total of 53 websites are listed on the website (departure date in 2013), surprisingly the same number for 2012.  I acknowledge that I have probably missed a few trips (and websites) as its hard to keep updated and often travelers don't know about The Africa Overland Network.

Book Review: Gone Riding by Dom Giles

"Knowing about something, reading about it or seeing pictures of it is not the same as witnessing it." Gone Riding by Dom Giles

Dom Giles

Twitter, and other social media, is a neat way of broadening perspective... I follow a number of overland travelers on Twitter and enjoy reading the various updates and being introduced to other travelers via 'follow' recommendations. A recent follow introduction was adventure motorcycling author Dom Giles. His newly published book "Gone Riding" was launched in the UK in November 2013 and made for the ideal Christmas holiday read. A quick visit to Amazon and a Kindle version was winging its way to my device...

Gone Riding by Dom Giles

Quoting two paragraphs from Dom's book provides a good insight into his travel style, and in turn, how this is translated into his book:

"I’d always been a little suspicious of trips that had definitive start and end points: that whole ‘Alaska to Ushuaia’ or ‘Cape to Cairo’ thing. It might look and sound neat, beautifully packaged and bookended but it seems to be focusing more on the destinations than the journey." - Highlight Loc. 403-5

"The English anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard said: “History is not a succession of events, it is the links between them,” and I think the same can be said about travelling. It shouldn’t be about where you start and where you finish as much as about what happens in between." - Highlight Loc. 405-7

The African Pothole by Kingsley Holgate

Kingsley Holgate - Google Image Search Results

“No adventure is complete without them” writes Kinglsey Holgate on his facebook page. He was writing in reference to 'The African Pothole'.

Don't miss the ferry...

Organised chaos, the hum of conversation, the smell of diesel, the stench of dirty water... people everywhere... welcome to the Brazzaville to Kinshasa ferry.

Peter Townsend - Land Rover Series I - Congo - Ferry 

Majority of overland routes in Africa involve some sort of ferry crossing, either in the likes of a state funded ferry service, or a simple homemade raft. The most popular ferry that most overlanders encounter is the Egypt to Sudan ferry - a barge takes your vehicle South and you patiently wait out the days on the passenger ferry.  Ferries operate on all major rivers, especially in Central Africa where bridges are hundreds of kilometers apart. These ferry trips take minutes to perhaps an hour max.  The most notorious is surely the Brazzaville to Kinshasa ferry...

Google Maps: Kinshasa to Brazzaville

A bit of history according to Mwana Mboka:

The twin cities of Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Brazzaville faced each other across 4 kilometers of the Congo River.  Both were founded at the beginning of the 1880s and boat traffic between the two was a priority from the outset, especially as French Congo received all its imports through the Belgian Congo port of Matadi until the Congo-Ocean railway was completed in 1934.  In 1898, the year the railway arrived in Leopoldville from Matadi, the Ste. Congolia started a ferry service to Brazzaville.

Vehicle Age Statistics

What is the average vehicle age for an overland prepared vehicle?  My requirement was to find out what the average Land Rover and Toyota vehicle age is, the generation of vehicle, plus facts like the newest vehicle, and the oldest.
In this blog post I analyse trans-Africa trips, listed on The Africa Overland Network, which departed in 2010 through to 2014 (departing next year).

Currently, The Africa Overland Network, has 791 websites listed - all based on independent trans-continental overland travel. I visited each and every website listed from 2010 to 2014 to find out what year their vehicle was built - that totaled a whopping 324 websites and took hours to complete.  Only half the websites actually listed the age of the vehicle, which left me with 161 websites, of which 134 were trans-Africa trips.

Paved or Unpaved?

What's your preference?  A paved (sealed) road or unpaved (gravel) road?

Somewhere in Tanzania (BigSky Adventures)

I was recently reading The Hubb forum and these two contrasting posts caught my eye.
The first post was requesting information on a route from London to Cape Town, with as little paved roads as possible.

Unpaved Roads

 The post below, was rather more hesitant and preferred paved roads from Germany to South Africa.

Paved Roads

Personally, I prefer gravel roads.  The World Bank has data on the percentage of paved roads each country has.

Roads, paved (% of total roads)

Data from World Bank

Feel free to add your thoughts on the Hubb forum.